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Sen. Rapheal Warnock, D-Georgia, knows that this year is one of the most pivotal in the history of the country.

That is why he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his late parishioner, Rep. John Lewis, to come to Selma.

“John Lewis understood that participating in our democracy is a sacred undertaking that’s about more than one person’s voice, is really about our humanity,” Warnock said during a press video call Thursday. “So in honor of John Lewis and the hundreds of brave, faithful protesters who cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, I’m going to continue to fight and keep the faith.”

One of the reasons why Warnock said he is coming to Selma is to show that democracy is not for sale.

“The people have to rise up and say, this is our democracy,” Warnock said. “You can’t buy it, and you can’t squeeze our voices out. And Selma reminds us better than most places that unarmed truth and unconditional love, as Dr. King used to say, will have the last word in reality.”

Warnock will be preaching at one of the churches in Selma this weekend. He said the message will be simple.

“We have to keep fighting the good fight and never lose the faith,” Warnock said. “Change does come. It’s never easy, but it comes and it usually doesn’t come from the top down and almost never comes from the bottom up… But we need every voice that, that is the, the fundamental truth of democracy in the first place, that every voice matters.”

Selma holds a special place for Warnock.

“I was there for the 50th anniversary. I was there standing on the bridge when the movie Selma was being created, along with some of the legacy soldiers in the Civil Rights movement, people like the Reverend Joseph Lowry and others who were there. I remember that day. And many of them have passed on. John Lewis has passed on. And so it’s left to us. It’s left to us to continue to fight for our democracy.

“I believe in American democracy, and I think that it is easy in this moment to give in and to give up. But John Lewis and, and those who fought alongside him, Amelia Boynton, who was passed on this very same bridge, they stood up. They didn’t have any reason to believe that they could win. I think that we look back and we talk as if these victories were inevitable. They were quite improbable, but they kept the faith, they kept pushing. And I think these milestone moments remind us as Dr. King said, that the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. And our work is to keep bending that arc.”